The mounting injustices demonstrate how the three-headed hydra of the global capitalist system benefits foreign finance capital, the military, domestic elites and transnational corporations while the remainder of the world is made to suffer.

tracktitles
A16
A17

releaseavailability
Ultra-red v Anna Planeta vinyl split 12" (FatCat Records 12FAT043, February 2002). http://fat-cat.co.uk

trackdescription
Composed exclusively from site recordings made during street protests against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Washington DC, April 16 and 17, 2000.

flashdispatch
20 April 2000

ultra-red returns from "disturbance in dc"

Yesterday, members of the audio-activist organization, Ultra-red returned to their home in Los Angeles from two days of mass protests against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC. Recalling the echoes of chants and the shouts of protesters amassed in the driving rain, we file this thoroughly subjective account of the "Disturbance in DC."

mediating public space

Throughout Sunday, April 16 and Monday, April 17, thousands of protesters flooded the streets of the nationās capitol, rallying against the undemocratic and brutal economic policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. For many of the 1200 demonstrators arrested over the course of the two days, their protests against these institutions transformed into a larger experience of solidarity with peoples around the world who face enormous personal risk for resisting the forces of global neoliberalism. In our small way, Ultra-red paid witness to these protests, torn between the collective desire to shut down the IMF and the World Bank and the very real threat of police terror sustained to protect those very institutions.

Like the anti-WTO protests last November, the demonstrations in Washington DC against the IMF and World Bank helped crack the flood gates of popular attention to these institutions, unleashing a torrent of newspaper articles, radio programs, television reports and internet exchanges both through the corporate-controlled media and in the alternative media. (For an excellent report of the A16 and A17 actions, see the on-line article, "The Meaning of April 16" by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman at http://www.corporatepredators.org.) An invaluable contribution to this profound swell in attention can be attributed in part to the savvy of media activists who repeated their successes in Seattle with a top-notch Independent Media Center in DC.

Whether domestic to the US or international, the machinery of structural adjustments robs people of control over their land, their resources, their communities and their labor. Conversely, the austerity model of privatization, foreign investment and labor insecurity has produced a force of solidarity, bringing together disparate struggles such as public housing in East Los Angeles and subsistence farming in Mexico.

In sharp contrast to the media from the street-level, mainstream media coverage focused incessantly on skirmishes with the police (for a striking personal account of one protesterās experience in jail, see http://www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=1677). The overriding message repeated in the networks and print media was the failure of the protesters to disrupt the IMF and World Bank gatherings. Notably absent from most reports was any detailed discussion of just what the world-finance institutions were meeting about (eg, top-down poverty alleviation). When IMF / World Bank officials were interviewed, such as in the Washington Post or New York Times, they were represented as the misunderstood good-guys committed to alleviating human suffering. Few bothered asking how poverty is alleviated through flexible labor markets, privatizing public assets to foreign capital and accumulating foreign debt to a DC-based financial institution. Again, the neoliberal line that protecting transnational capital magically benefits the worldās workers never received analysis. Only protesters seemed interested in such questions ö in return they were repeatedly called ignorant by IMF / World Bank officials.

in a different city, a different strategy

In preparation for Ultra-redās trip to the nationās Capitol, members of our organization compiled a self-produced CDR of tracks composed exclusively from recordings of the Seattle demonstrations on November 30, 1999 (hence the CDRās title, "N30"). Three of the tracks on the limited-edition release were composed in the style of minimal house, fit for the sort of festival in the streets planned for DC. The fourth track on the CDR offered a chilling soundscape of the events from the "Battle in Seattle." Our plan for the CDR was two-fold: to provide any planned guerrilla sound-systems with DJ tools in transforming city-streets into impromptu dance parties. Our second objective was to provide a musical soundtrack for Independent Media Center radio broadcasts. While the later was a success, thanks to the fierce dedication and wily creativity of the radio activists at the IMC, the former objective never materialized.

"We're non-violent, how about you?" Police tactics in DC consisted of mass arrests, preemptive search and seizures before the A16 and A17 actions. On the days of the protests police appeared willing to negotiate when they weren't using tear gas, charging horses and motorcycles or bludgeoning protesters with batons. The media deemed all this a success of preserving the peace.

The non-appearance of guerrilla DJs and insurgent sound-systems in the streets of DC served as one example of the overall reality that DC both as a city and as a stage for mass mobilization offers radically different opportunities from those witnessed in Seattle. For one thing, while the police perimeter surrounding the Convention Center site of the WTO meetings only extended a single-city block radius, the barricaded zone around the IMF and World Bank buildings encompassed nineteen city blocks.

Furthermore, in terms of urban geography alone, DC is profoundly different from Seattle. Whereas the later offered wide straight avenues with towering buildings perfect for the reverberating din of large numbers of demonstrators, DC resembles the sprawl of many American cities. Building codes restricting the height of towers, guarantees an overall low profile. The numerous massive lawns and fragmented squares simultaneously dwarfs gatherings (like the A16 rally held on the Ellipse) and breaks them up as happened when people moved into the neighborhoods surrounding the IMF and World Bank sites.

demonstrating street acoustics

All this is not to say that innovative strategies were not deployed over the two-days of demonstrations. Quite on the contrary, Ultra-red witnessed remarkable demonstrations of practicing cooperation and solidarity. While banners, puppets and enormous props together with chants and singing carried the messages of the protesters in their opposition to tactics of the IMF and World Bank, numerous tactics were employed to coordinate affinity groups, mobilize large numbers of people and reach consensus around group actions.

The massive "Peoples' Assembly" marches toward the A16 rally on the Ellipse. Organized by people of color, the "Peoples' Assembly" demonstrated the support for the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America who have largely born the ill-effects of IMF and World Bank neocolonialist policies.

One of the most intriguing strategies witnessed by Ultra-red was how instructions and important information was communicated across large crowds through the use of chanting and repetition. While person along the front lines of police-controlled barricades negotiated their actions amongst themselves and with the police, these messages would then be repeated by the entire assembly so that no decision was made in secret or without the possibility of giving space for discussion.

In the absence of electronic amplification systems, protesters deployed acoustic strategies that transformed the human assembly itself and the spatial acoustics of the city into an enormous amplification system. But unlike the authoritarian voice of the loudspeaker or megaphone, this form of amplification permitted dissent and dialog.

more world less bank or more world no bank

Without a doubt, the aura of Seattle contributed greatly to inspiring many to come to DC for these actions. Lured by the possibility of shutting down meetings of the IMF and World Bank ö the other two heads of the tri-headed global capitalist order ö close to 20,000 conscientious objectors to global capitalism amassed in Washington DC on April 16 and 17. The protesters reassembled the anti-WTO coalition of labor, environmental, human rights and student activists. And despite repeated claims by the corporate media, the crowds reflected a huge diversity of age groups, backgrounds, geographic locations and racial and ethnic make up. Reports that the protesters were solely white middle-class college students were perpetrated largely by media elites who stood on the side-lines behind the shelter of police-controlled barricades.

A16's "Mobilization for Global Justice" once again brought together the labor movement, environmentalists and international human rights activists. The march also demonstrated an emerging collaboration between labor, non-governmental organizations and street activists.

But where do the events of A16 and A17 take us and the movement against global neoliberalism? In many respects, DC was about educating a US-movement still in its infancy. Our ability to analyze and critique the institutions of neoliberal globalization has reached a very sophisticated level thanks in large part to the work preceding us in the underdeveloped world. Furthermore, our access to policy-makers, the actual mechanics of institutions like the IMF and World Bank benefits enormously from the positions, geographic and ideological, of non-governmental organizations and advocacy groups like 50 Years Is Enough, Public Citizen and others. But the ability to strategize actions like A16 and A17 as well as the upcoming actions around the Republican and Democrat National Conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles respectively, has required the formation of whole new models and networks (such as the Direct Action Network).

In the process of inventing these means of realizing our dissent against global neoliberalism, a crucial task will be that our criticisms evoke new possibilities. Possibilities for living together, working together and learning from one another that find incarnation in the very organizations and networks we institute today. In both Seattle and DC, Ultra-red was thoroughly impressed with the level of cooperation and creativity among the demonstrators. Remarkably, we witnessed over and again groups of individuals who only days before were complete strangers, acting upon their collective desires, negotiating their differences and mobilizing effectively. These experiences will no doubt fuel further discussion and actions when demonstrators return to their homes (and finally secure freedom from jail).

For more information on the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and the movements organized to democratize the global economy, check out the following websites:

http://www.a16.org/
http://www.50years.org/
http://www.indymedia.org/
http://www.globalexchange.org/
http://www.aflcio.org/home.htm